


Mirror Shards

by oogenesis



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-02-28 15:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13273980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: Snippets of Zexal and GX characters in the AU world of Arc V.Latest: The Marufujis have a prisoner.





	1. Chapter 1

"She _what?_ "

The outburst that issued from the office of Sub-Commander Tenjouin that morning was something everyone had been waiting for. Ever since the report had been tossed across the desk of a hapless Osiris Red, the unit as a whole had been putting off informing him of the occurrence. And now, it seemed, the moment had arrived.

"My baby sister has _vanished?_ "

"Sir, she is a grown woman, quite capable of fending for herself —"

"Has anyone been trying to _find_ her?"

"Yes, actually, she's considered criminally on the run, she needs to be captured and brought in —"

"Wh—" Tenjouin paused, blinked for a moment. "Well don't _capture_ her, for god's sake, I just need to know she's safe, all right?"

“All right. Sir.” His deputy hesitated for a moment, trying to determine if this could be considered an official order. If so, Tenjouin might have to be court-martialed, perhaps even brought before the Professor, for breaking procedure out of flagrant favoritism — but then again, people tended to tolerate his eccentricities. He was, after all, a brilliant duelist and strategist, and demoting him would mean a loss of valuable contribution.

The deputy made a mental note to tell the rest of the unit to bring her in unharmed.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. Apparently Marufuji has gone rogue again.”

Tenjouin sighed and dropped back into his chair. “Again?”

“Yes, sir. Again.”

It wasn’t the first time, or even the second, or third. Marufuji had a tendency to buck orders, ditch his squadron, and go on what could be described as a rampage if not for how very deliberate it clearly was. He tended to get off easy because those episodes did, after all, deal significant and strategically useful damage to the Resistance forces. And there was a rumor that increasing his penalty each time wouldn’t deter him at all, because said punishments tended to be corporeal, and, well —

Tenjouin rubbed his eyes. “All right, bring him in for questioning. Use caution, all that. If I know him —” He stopped with his mouth open, blinked a couple times; a look of puzzlement passed over his face. “Well, anyway. He has a tendency to be pretty unreasonable during those times, from — from what I’ve heard. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” Nothing he couldn’t have inferred himself, but Tenjouin seemed distracted now, a look of mild confusion on his face. “I… I think that’s all, sir.”

“Good.” Tenjouin appeared to shake himself out of it. “Make sure Asuka-chan gets back safe, all right?”

Asuka-chan. No one in their right mind would refer to a fellow soldier that way in an official context, regardless of familial relationship, but there was a rumor that Tenjouin had once fallen into a gap between dimensions and it had turned him a bit odd in the head. Fairytales, like the superstition that the Real Solid Vision testing facility was built on top of a haunted abandoned dorm. "Yes, sir."

"Is that all?" asked Tenjouin.

The deputy had work to be doing. “Yes, sir, that's all."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Marufuji brothers have a prisoner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLAWS MY WAY OUT OF WIP HELL
> 
> it's shitty but i need to break this inactivity. just take it

“Are you going to tell me what I’m in here for?” said the boy at length, breaking the silence.

Shou jumped a little. He _was_ jumpy. He wasn’t used to dealing with prisoners, especially not down here in the confinement chambers that were dark and oppressive and intimidating, and looked as though nasty things happened in them that Shou didn’t want to think about. He was an aboveground kind of guy—more of a desk guy, if he were honest with himself; he didn’t like being here, especially not in front of tied-up and beaten-up children.

Ryou didn’t look up from going through the captured deck. “You’re with the Resistance, obviously.”

“You’re just assuming that.” The kid’s eyes gave nothing away; Shou couldn’t tell whether or not he was bluffing.

“Then you’re an Xyz remnant on Academia grounds. Obviously we were going to take you in. You like water attributes, huh?”

“So, what now?” The boy kicked at the legs of the chair. “Are you going to torture me?”

“We’re not,” jumped in Shou. “Probably. If you cooperate. My brother’s just paranoid.”

The kid was unimpressed. “What, are you the good cop or something? How old are you?”

Shou bristled. Nervousness made him snappy, and kid looked to be in middle school. “I’m _nineteen_.”

“Could’ve fooled m—”

“He’s not the good cop,” said Ryou, and tapped the cards back into a unified stack with a decisive gesture. “He’s just along for the ride. Don’t pay attention to him. Now, this card.” He held out a card; Shou could just make out the name _Aero Shark_ as it flashed through an angle visible to him.

“What about it?”

“We’ve had multiple Obelisk Force soldiers sent to the infirmary with deep bite marks in their torsos,” said Ryou, rough and impassive. “Looked a lot like these teeth.”

The boy’s scowl deepened. “Yeah, so what? If they didn’t want to get a bite taken out of them they shouldn’t have destroyed Heartland in the first place.”

Ryou stared at him for a long time. “Why were you on Academia grounds?”

The boy returned a measured glare, as though weighing what to tell him. Finally, he said, “Looking for my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah. Or any information about her, because for all I know she could be carded or dead.” He put bitter emphasis into the last sentence, dark and cold like the depths of a stormy ocean. “Not that you keep records of the people you murder, right?”

This… was why Shou much preferred to work a desk job. “She might not be,” she ventured, and the boy turned his gaze on him. There was a _lot_ of vengeance in such a young face.

“Oh? Then where is she?”

“I’m asking the questions,” snapped Ryou. “What’s your name?”

“Shark.”

“Your real name.”

“That’s all you’re getting.”

“Are you _trying_ to get tortured?”

“What, over my _name_?”

This was a clash of wills Shou couldn’t measure up to. He wondered if he could discreetly find the exit.

Ryou snorted. “The torture isn’t that bad anyway. I would know.”

 _You’re a grown man with some strange ideas about pain saying this to a middle schooler_ , thought Shou grimly, while the boy called Shark sent Shou a look that read _What the fuck is wrong with your brother?_

“What have you learned about the grounds of Academia and who have you relayed this information to?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

“That's what the shock-amplifying devices are f—”

Then the ceiling caved in.

When Shou’s senses had recovered from the earth-splitting noise and violent shaking of the entire room, he realized he was curled into a corner, arms over his head, covered in dust. Fragments of stone wall dropped down onto him; his ears were still ringing with the sound of crunching and cracking and the whine of metal.

The dust in the room was settling. Ryou had scrambled back against the far wall, on guard and eyes wide; the prisoner’s chair was lying on the ground with him still tied to it, probably upended by his struggle to get away. There was a pile of debris on the floor and above it, poking through a massive hole in the ceiling, was....

...a giant snow plow?

A giant snow plow with 1800 ATK?

The most loudly dressed girl Shou had ever seen appeared through the hole, leaping over the body of the snowplow itself while he was still trying to process everything. “Yo! Shark, right?”

“Wh—What?” Shark appeared just as disoriented as the Marufuji brothers; there was dust in his hair and his eyes were wide and staring.

The girl leaped down from the snowplow and ran over to him, planting her hands on her hips and bending down to examine him. “Kotori sent me. You know Kotori, right? Wow, you’re not looking so good, are you?”

Ryou was heading for her now, arms outstretched to grab another Xyz remnant—there was no mistaking the Overlay Units circling over their heads—but his way was hampered by the half-destroyed state of the room they were in. The girl picked up the chair Shark was in with him still in it, hefted it over her head—the muscles in her arms bunching as she did so—and ran back up the pile of debris, kicking the door of the snowplow open, throwing the chair and loudly protesting prisoner into the cabin, and jumping in behind him.

You could—you could just _go into_ a monster like that? What the hell was going on? Why wouldn’t Shou’s ears stop ringing and when would he start being able to actually see anything through all this dust? Ryou had reached the snowplow, and Cyber Dragon reared its head behind him, but with a revving sound almost as loud as the initial plowing through the ceiling, monster, duelist and prisoner backed out through the hole and disappeared.

Ryou’s arm fell back down at his side; Cyber Dragon dissolved into light. Neither of them spoke.

A stone brick fell from the ceiling with a loud thud, sending up another cloud of dust around it.

“What the fuck,” said Ryou eloquently.

The worst part was that Shou knew he’d have to take care of all the paperwork.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are highly valued, as always. especially ones that consist of more than just "write more please" no offense


End file.
